Centre for the Study of Culture and Society

Sections

Course 802: Culture and the Disciplines

The objective of this course is to introduce the contemporary debates in the social sciences and humanities relating to the ‘cultural turn’ of the 1990s. We will, on the one hand, look into how the question of culture has been dealt with in the disciplines, and on the other, examine how the emergent domain of cultural studies has engaged with the disciplines. Of interest here would be the claims to inter-disciplinarity made by cultural studies practitioners, and the many diverse institutional locations of cultural studies that appear to be multi- rather than inter-disciplinary. The dual focus of the course will be on understanding the disciplinary legacies of cultural studies in India and on strengthening the methodologies of cultural studies research.

Week 3: HistoryDipesh Chakrabarty, 'Postcoloniality and the Artifice of History', from Provincializing EuropeLink found here Ranajit Guha, 'The Prose of Counter-Insurgency' Link found here Sumit Sarkar, 'The Many Worlds of Indian History' Link found here

Week 4: Film and Visuality Studies (SVS)Christopher Pinney, 'The Possibility of a Visual History', from Photos of the GodsLink found here Chapter6 Link Chapt. 1 LinkDavid MacDougall, 'The Visual in Anthropology' Link found here Ravi Vasudevan, 'Shifting Codes, Dissolving Identities: The Hindi Social Film of the 1950s as Popular Culture' Link found here Ashish Rajadhyaksha, 'The Phalke Era' Link found here

Week 5: Anthropology and Sociology Clifford Geertz, 'Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture', from The Interpretation of CulturesLink found here James Clifford, 'On Ethnographic Authority', from The Predicament of Culture Link found here

Week 6:Law and Culture (TBA)Rosemary Coombs, 'Contingent Articulations: A Critical Cultural Studies of Law' Link found hereAlternative Law Forum, 'Of Master Plans, Laws and Illegalities in an Era of Transition' Link found hereFlavia Agnes, 'State Control and Sexual Morality: The Case of the Bar Dancer of Mumbai' Link found here

Week 7:Philosophy Jacques Derrida, 'Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences' Link found hereLouis Althusser, 'Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses' Link found here